Oscar hosting: Is it a thankless task?

NEW YORK — The love-him-or-hate-him reaction to Seth MacFarlane's turn as Academy Awards host is evidence that one of the most high-profile jobs in show business is becoming one of its most thankless.

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By DAVID BAUDER

poconorecord.com

By DAVID BAUDER

Posted Feb. 26, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Feb 26, 2013 at 6:25 AM

By DAVID BAUDER

Posted Feb. 26, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Feb 26, 2013 at 6:25 AM

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NEW YORK — The love-him-or-hate-him reaction to Seth MacFarlane's turn as Academy Awards host is evidence that one of the most high-profile jobs in show business is becoming one of its most thankless.

The "Family Guy" creator and first-time Oscars host seemed unusually preoccupied with his reviews both before and during Sunday's show. He predicted he'd be ripped apart and he was, particularly on social media. He also had his fans, with many suggesting the motion picture academy got precisely the kind of performance it expected and wanted in hiring someone known for his subversive, even crude humor.

As is often the case with the Oscars, the major awards themselves — "Argo" as best picture, Daniel Day Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence as top actors — hewed closely to pre-show predictions. The host's performance is the most unpredictable element of the show, and it seems the negative experiences have the most mileage. David Letterman's awkward 1995 turn is well-remembered, most of all by him. Chris Rock tried to bring some edge in 2005 and fell flat. James Franco and Anne Hathaway's snoozefest in 2011 is still being talked about.

After Franco and Hathaway, the Oscars returned last year to the tried and true — eight-time host Billy Crystal — and faced criticism that the reliable had become the stodgy.

To some ears, MacFarlane's material — which included a song-and-dance number about breast-baring actresses, a domestic violence joke involving Rihanna and Chris Brown, and references to Mel Gibson's racial slurs — didn't make the grade.

"If you're going to the edge, you have to be funny," said comic Joy Behar on "The View" Monday. "To me, I love Seth, but it wasn't funny enough."

Behar's colleague, Whoopi Goldberg — a four-time Oscars host — had a bit more empathy, noting that people in MacFarlane's position have a tough line to walk. The Oscars can't force a younger audience to be interested just by hiring a younger host, she said, and a younger host has to know the audience that is out there.

The Nielsen Co. said an estimated 40.3 million people watched the Academy Awards on Sunday, up 1 million from last year and the first time since 2010 that the show topped the 40 million mark. More importantly for ABC, ratings for the 18-to-49-year-old demographic were up 11 percent over 2012. That's the age group upon which ABC bases its advertising rates, and MacFarlane was brought in this year in part to attract a younger audience.

The telecast was likely also propelled by the second screen experience, which has steadily grown in recent years as a driver of ratings for major live TV events. Twitter said that there were a total of 8.9 million tweets about the Academy Awards during the show and red carpet arrivals. That fell short of both the Grammys earlier in the month (more than 14 million tweets) and the record 24.1 million tweets about the recent Super Bowl and halftime show.

Arguably MacFarlane's most offensive joke referred to actors who had tried to play Abraham Lincoln over the years. "I would argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth," MacFarlane said of Lincoln's assassin.

In addition, a pre-taped song about movies where famous actresses displayed their breasts was seen by some women as sexist — and a much-echoed criticism of MacFarlane's Oscar performance.

On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League added itself to the list of those offended, protesting his joke, through the teddy bear from his movie "Ted," about Jewish control over Hollywood. The bear, voiced by MacFarlane, claimed he was "born Theodore Shapiro and I would like to donate money to Israel and continue to work in Hollywood forever."